I’m really glad that the Language Log blog did a recent post on the who cares of other language’s vocabularies and especially as this one has to do with the World Cup. The World in Words podcast which I otherwise adore annoys me on this point by showcasing each week “hard to translate words” which they then promptly translate. Maybe they’ll feature “vuvuzela.”

Who cares what Zulu has a word for?

Did you know Zulu has a word for “annoying three-foot-long one-note plastic trumpet”? Isn’t that fascinating? No. Of course it isn’t fascinating. It’s a wonderful example of why I tend to think the issue of what things different languages have words for (especially, have nouns for) is stupid and trivial.

Turn on your TV right now to whichever sports channel is showing the England’s soccer game against the USA in the World Cup in South Africa. Turn the sound up. Why does it sound as if several dozen propeller-drived airplanes have started up their engines in the stadium? Has someone dropped one of the commentator’s mikes into a huge beehive? No It’s just that South Africans love to bring annoying three-foot-long one-note plastic trumpets to every game and blow them continuously. (They all seem to be tuned roughly to A below middle C.)

Because they use these things, Zulu has a word for them (and other languages like Setswana do too, but the Zulu one happened to catch on). And because the World Cup is being played in South Africa and the move to have these things banned failed, English has borrowed the word: vuvuzela…

It’s not a fascinating fact that English has this [word] now, it’s trivial and obvious, like every other factoid about things people have nouns for…